September 20, 2008 @ 13:40 UTC

Tomorrow (Sept 19) Omar turns 22. There’s really not much news about his status and there has yet to be a follow up response from the Canadian government, whose members continue to ignore the case and seemingly refusing to take this matter into their own hands. Over 7 years in prison now and counting. He was in his early teens when he was first arrested.

He is charged with tossing a hand grenade that killed a U.S. soldier during a 2002 firefight at an al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan. [Source]

Apparently there’s no documented evidence on that. In fact, Michael Melia, an Associated Press reporter, notes that claims against Khadr were intentionally altered by a U.S military commander:

The military commanderâ€™s official report the day after the raid originally said the assailant who threw the grenade was killed, which would rule out Khadr as the suspect.

The report was revised months later, under the same date, to say a U.S. fighter had only â€œengagedâ€ the assailant, according to Kuebler, who said the later version was presented to him by prosecutors as an â€œupdatedâ€ document.

Kuebler told reporters after the hearing that it appears â€œthe government manufactured evidence to make it look like Omar was guilty.â€

Why should we expect evidence? We never got evident reports on Aafia Siddiqui’s case either, who has apparently been tortured enough to have lost her sanity, and her lawyer claims that she can’t even sit properly on a wheelchair. Until today Siddiqui’s family also have no idea what happened to her children, one of whom was only a few months old at the time of her arrest.

For those of you who often (very often) confuse demands for justice with supporting terrorism, here’s a message that might help develop your logic:

He [his lawyer] said Khadr is not asking for forgiveness or even freedom.

“Just give him a court room. He’s asking for a fair process,” he said.

Everyone deserves a fair trial. No exceptions. We already have enough propaganda that can justify anything in existence, what is needed here is evidence, which has yet to be provided, instead of a banquet of baseless claims being force-fed to the public under the false banner of “national security,” a term that has been abused and over-used to justify several vile crimes.

Unfortunately, Siddiqui has yet to receive a fair trial as well. Hundreds of other “suspects” remain forgotten and abused in the hands of the U.S government. They tell us demanding information is in line with supporting and justifying terrorism, this is an increasingly popular strategy that our own governments also use when we demand justice for minorities or free-thinking civilians who are regarded as “threats” to our national security despite a clear lack of any evidence that remotely suggest that. This is an ongoing process that reeks of corruption.

Families of both so-called “suspects” want their loved ones home. I’m sure hundreds of other undocumented cases exist and devastated families of such individuals continue to ask simple questions which have consistently been ignored by the U.S government.